A View from the Bridge

"And just like that, Ivo van Hove cements his place irrefutably among the most revolutionary theater makers of our time. Because in its elemental economy, its flashes of uncanny insight, his revival of Arthur Miller’s 'A View from the Bridge' is simply staggering…A required destination for any pilgrim whose object of worship is serious drama." Full Review

"What is playing over at the Lyceum Theatre just may be some of the best theatre of the decade. This is no joke...Belgian experimental Director Ivo Van Hove's minimalist production is ominous and eerily powerful...The innovative staging is reminiscent of a cage match where the actors, all barefoot by the way, engage in a brawl for two hours…This production is nothing short of pure brilliance." Full Review

"Director Ivo Van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller's 'A View From the Bridge' not only has all of these elements, but sets a new standard on what theatre can be…This show is a once-in-a-lifetime production and truly a great achievement of Van Hove and his cast and crew. Go see this show—you will come away from it completely exhausted but fulfilled." Full Review

"In my opinion you should absolutely sit on the stage... The sound design is really phenomenal - it really adds to the tension... It just simmers, you could totally shout, but it was quiet and sincere and only boiled when it needed to boil." Full Review

"Ivo van Hove’s magnificent reconception of Arthur Miller’s 'A View From the Bridge,' takes you into extreme emotional territory that you seldom dare visit in daily life. At the end of its uninterrupted two hours, you are wrung out, scooped out and so exhausted that you’re wide awake...Mr. Strong’s is the most powerful single performance you’re likely to see this year." Full Review

"No stars, no props and a minimal set help us focus on the tortured relationships at the heart of this modern tragedy. The tension never dips as the show heads toward the kind of mind-blowing climax that’s the stuff of Broadway legend. Admittedly, those familiar with the 1955 play’s web of passion, jealousy and betrayal will get more out of this production’s bracing new insights. But the show’s so strong, its impact feels universal." Full Review

"Breathe, everybody, breathe! Audiences really need to be reminded of that at the end of Ivo Van Hove’s magnificent production…The show, anchored by a towering performance from Mark Strong as a longshoreman whose willful blindness causes his whole world to come crashing down, is both visually gorgeous and an emotional wipeout…Strong scales those heights, giving an electrifying performance of raw power and terrifying beauty." Full Review

"Director Ivo van Hove digs down and grabs the pulsing, bloody heart of Arthur Miller’s 1956 drama…Mark Strong gives a performance of harrowing intensity as doomed Eddie Carbone…Van Hove stages this elegant and lean tale with almost perverse understatement…The simplicity and restraint, however, gathers to a ferocious and bloody head that leaves you breathless and aghast...The ensemble is uniformly superb, palpably relishing van Hove’s emotionally transparent approach." Full Review

"This is the very rare production that matches the complexity of the text, with its mixed-messaged collision of the cerebral and the sensual, a dichotomy at the heart of everything Miller ever wrote…Van Hove's brilliance is multifaceted, but much rests on his ability to focus the mind and soul on a work's tiny moments." Full Review

"Hypnotic power that is rarely seen in our theater…Van Hove’s version makes you feel that you have never seen the play before...The casting is superb and each actor’s presence is palpably felt...When 'A View from the Bridge' is over, the audience knows that it has participated in a communal act of catharsis...This production demonstrates without a doubt that this is what Arthur Miller was attempting in 'View' and has succeeded completely." Full Review

"If you think you've seen Arthur Miller's dark classic 'A View From the Bridge' enough times, think again. The muscular production is a stunning, imaginative theatrical experience, an impassioned interpretation that really brings the heat to Miller's gripping drama…Eventually all the actors enfold one another in a haunting, anguished tableau, a brilliant visual summation by van Hove of how people in this close-knit community must stand or fall together." Full Review

"From the first moments of director Ivo van Hove’s stripped-down and downright stunning production of 'A View From the Bridge,' it is clear this will be unlike any other …This 'View' moves with the terrifying inevitability of myth…Most of this happens on designer Jan Versweyveld’s elevated plain square with an emotional honesty that makes even Miller’s heavier lines seem almost improvised." Full Review

"It’s hard to turn your eyes away from the stage for even an instant. This is theater at its most direct and enthralling, with the usual supporting elements stripped away so that the characters, on a nearly bare stage, are vividly revealed as creatures of pure, irresistible human impulse…If the atmosphere is stylized, the performances are totally naturalistic, led by English actor Mark Strong’s haunting portrayal of Eddie." Full Review

"The absence of the traditional stagecraft focuses all the attention on the text and the actors bringing it to life. The result is something akin to what watching an original production of a play by Sophocles must have been...It's hard to imagine that there will be a finer performance this season." Full Review

"An intensely gripping look at what has always been the closest thing to Greek tragedy Miller ever wrote…An electrifying and unexpected dance. The tensions that roil beneath this family’s surface simmer and explode. Mark Strong is brilliant as the deluded and denial-ridden Eddie…By the time we climb to the blood-drenched emotional climax of the story, we’re almost too tired to clamber out of our seats for the much-deserved ovation. But clamber we do. And then we breathe." Full Review

"What Mr. van Hove has done is reinforce the fact that this is a memory play...This allows him to create moments of art on the stage that are stunning and breathtaking...And in doing so, there is a level of tragedy you haven’t seen in this script before. This is an incredible theatrical event. I hope I get to see it again." Full Review

"While this may seem like a bold reimagining of an American classic by a European auteur, it's actually a lot closer to Miller's original intent…The aptly named Strong embodies those urges in his earthy, virile portrayal of Eddie…Van Hove does Miller a great honor by taking 'A View from the Bridge' out of the museum and asserting it as a living, breathing work capable of being reimagined ad infinitum, like the best plays by Shakespeare." Full Review

"This is an exhilarating production, assured and perilous, abstract and concretely physical…In Mark Strong’s extraordinary and visceral performance we see a man who has become a stranger to himself, a paragon of manhood unmanned and set adrift both by his own desires and by challenges to his masculine assumptions...Strong is well supported by the other cast members, though accents can waver between south Brooklyn and north London." Full Review

"Ivo van Hove's stunning reappraisal of the 1956 Arthur Miller drama is led by a knockout performance from Mark Strong…Performed by a sizzling ensemble led by Mark Strong, this is powerhouse theater that leaves you breathless…Van Hove strips the play down to its raw bones…By peeling away the real-world trappings, the production releases something primal in Miller's drama." Full Review

"I can't compare Ivo van Hove's vision of this drama with another, but I know good theatre when I see it...Perhaps because the production is so raw and bare, it's easy to see this as a Shakespearean tragedy, and it is easy to draw comparisons to Miller's other leading men...Van Hove has revitalized a classic." Full Review

"A brutal parable for the season of Trump, director Ivo van Hove's pared-back production of Arthur Miller's 'A View From the Bridge' depicts the paranoid mindset of aggrieved patriarchy. It's a timely tragedy: a reminder of how easily wounded pride can mutate into xenophobic aggression...Ignoring conventional markers of space and time, van Hove concocts a steadily mounting pressure." Full Review

"Though van Hove adds a few visual grace notes to the otherwise spare proceedings—including a cathartic, blood-soaked coup de théâtre at the end—the production keeps its focus on the story, the language, and the extraordinary performances of the actors...As superb as all the performances are individually, it is the actors’ connections to one another that give this production its electric charge." Full Review

"Strong is manly, magnetic and as persuasive as a heart attack…The stark staging by van Hove, a Broadway newcomer who’s known for stripped-back takes on classics, gets straight to the meat of the story…If there’s a quibble it’s that Eddie’s final fate may be somewhat unclear if you don’t know the play. Also, constant underscoring of sacred music, ambient sounds and percussive beats leads to diminishing returns." Full Review

"Van Hove has directed a classy cast to make the Carbone family and other key characters come to vivid and believable life…Mark Strong's Eddie is the magnetic centerpiece…A visually and aurally elegant production...There are a few spots between the breathtaking opening and finale that feel a bit slow without more realistic details about the neighborhood...Still, this is a a highly theatrical, not to be missed tribute to the play's durability." Full Review

"Van Hove and his excellent cast take the lid off Eddie’s obsessions and inhibitions, ending in a literal blood bath. Van Hove is highly dramatic, but he isn’t always very subtle. Some of the performances, though, are both. Strong turns Eddie’s tragedy into an utter inability and unwillingness to understand his own motives." Full Review